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Dessert

Coffee Spiced Cake

A spiced cake made with coffee, molasses, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Coffee Spiced Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Heat the coffee until hot.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot coffee.

  5. Combine the coffee with the molasses.

  6. Add this mixture to the butter and sugar.

  7. Seed and coarsely chop the raisins.

  8. Sprinkle the raisins with a little flour.

  9. Sift the spices into the flour.

  10. Stir the flour into the mixture.

  11. Add the raisins.

  12. Beat well for at least five minutes until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as the cake sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to lift the cake and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a hint of acidity.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beat well for at least five minutes until smooth. Extended beating after the flour goes in develops gluten, which gives structure but can make the cake tough if overmixed. Beat until the batter is smooth, then stop. Dissolving the baking soda fully in the coffee also matters so it reacts evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, cinnamon, molasses, coffee, nutmeg):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, cinnamon, molasses, coffee, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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